Tree Hunting
by Lily x James 4 eva
Summary: Lily and james go tree hunting for a detention and Lily ends up learning a bit about James. I know I really shouldn't be starting another fic but...oh well. LJ
1. Chapter 1

1TREE HUNTING! (TIS LOTS O' FUN YOU KNOW...)

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"I cant believe it, I just CANT believe it."

"You know, its not all _that_ bad..."

"HA! Yeah...not that bad my foot!" Lily stomped to emphasize her meaning. To say the least, James got it.

"Why is it every time you are in my company you start spouting off hexes without even missing a beat? Sometimes I feel you single me out..."

"Oh Merlin Potter...How could you tell? And stop moaning, we're lagging behind." Lily jogged up to the game keeper, Hagrid, who she had the unfortunate privilege to serve her detention for. 'Why?', do you ask? Hagrid's not a bad guy...just has a bit of an un-proportioned judgement of evil, hairy, poisonous, carbon-based life forms who usually end up eating ones limbs or luring them into their cave and making _them _their pets. Yeah, well, that brings us to the problem at present. Lily's unfortunate punishment, for being late to class for the first time in her life, arriving right along side Potter, was receiving a smack-dab detention and Lily was _horrified _at her timing. That morning went a little bit like this:

"_No, Potter, I will not go out with you. Now please leave, because I'm going to be late for class. And if you make me late you will endure dire consequences. Do I make myself clear?" Lily shoved past James without even letting him reply. He, however, easily caught up with her and continued to bug her, no matter how brisk she set her pace._

"_Come on Lily...but you _do _know the bell has already rung and that if we're both late together you get to serve detention with me. How does Saturday night sound?"_

"_Potter, my idea of a fun Saturday night is NOT scrubbing bed pans with Filch's toothbrush with the one person in the world I most detest."_

"_Now, that's a bit harsh, don't you think? It's usually Ms. Norris'." He grinned. Lily tried REALLY hard not to smile, but could not help the corners of her mouth twitch upwards. "Now, there, that's a bit better. It'll liven up this cheery conversation."_

"_Oy...Sometimes I wish you weren't so witty...and NO-" for a smile lit up on his face and he was about to say something along the lines of "You think I'm witty?" "-that is NOT a compliment. Please, move." And then something made her heart stop. The sound of the late bell. And for the first time in ten minutes, Lily realized the hall was completely empty. Her heart caught in her throat. She thought she was going to be sick..._

"_Told you we'd be late." James said gruffly, folding his arms. Lily shot off though as if she hadn't heard what he said, though she fully well did, and arrived at class, pink-faced and out of breath, and the Slytherins immediately began sneering._

"_Miss Evans, Mr. Potter" (for James had just arrived at her side) "You two are late and will both be recieving detentions. And please stop that twitching Mr. Malfoy, it does not become you. Potter, Evans, sit down. I will think of your punishment and inform you at the end of class." Professor McGonagall crisply arranged a leaflet of papers and proceeded with the class. Lily thought she was going to cry...Potter actually had the decency to look ashamed and a bit embarrassed for being caught late with Lily._

And that brings us back to the present. The snow crunched under their feet, and several times Lily slipped on the melting slush.

"Stupid snow..." she muttered. "And Hagrid, how on earth are we supposed to help you bring in the trees? We're not nearly as strong as you are."

"Well, you 'ave a wand, an' I don'. Does 'sat answer yer question?" Lily blushed.

"Oh, yes, how could I forget..."

"'Is ok, 'is ok. Ever'one 'as their moments." They walked in silence for a bit, until Lily tuned to James and asked,

"Why are you so quiet? Usually, right about now, you'd be asking me where I sit in the library and study or what my favorite class is, or what kind of dog I own, or—"

"You always sit at that little table behind the special charms shelf so that when you finish your homework you can read up on some spells, your favorite class is, obviously, charms, and your dog is a Golden Retriever." He said, not even looking at her. Lily gaped then turned away once she realized what she was doing. "So..." he continued, thinking of something to say.

He failed terribly.

"Tree's...they're...big...and green...until autumn of course...but then after that they just go right back to green, right...?"

"I suppose..."

"Up here, a bit more!" Hagrid called over his shoulder. Lily sighed in relief, thankful that because they were closer they would be done quicker and she could get out of the snow...until she saw the direction they were going.

"Oh, dear, Hagrid...? Why the forest, of all places?" she pleaded.

"Because it has trees." Hagrid yelled back, rather not having to as the answer was obvious.

"And what color are the trees, James?" Lily asked smirking.

"They're...er...green?" he answered, confused, causing Lily to laugh. He smiled.

"Your stupidity is amusing."she said.

"Well, I guess that's the best compliment I'm going to get out of you for the rest of the year...I shall cherish it and record it into my diary."

"You own a diary?"

"Yep...then I could carve it onto my bed frame...if I could find any room...Sirius seems to think it's meant as a GIANT post it note where he can carve each little thing he needs to remember...including how many times Dumbledore twirled his beard at this last start of term feast...in TALLY marks...at least that was his excuse last time." They were in the forest now.

"Ok, you two, find the tallest, fullest, greenest trees you can." Hagrid yelled, already hacking at the base of a trunk with an axe he had brought along. Lily's eyes flew up and she began scanning for a tree fit to satisfy Flitwick's harsh eye.

"Hey, Lily!" James yelled, laughing, after a few minutes. He began to snort and pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the tree behind him. "Haha...pine tree...because I pine for you...haha...it's a pine tree of LOVE!"

Lily slapped her forehead.

"Come on Potter...I think I see a good one up ahead."

"Where?"

"Right there!" She angrily took a step forward and tripped over a tree root. She screamed then hit the ground.

"Ow..." she muttered. James chuckled and offered his hand. She took it without thinking.

"Cut it down." she commanded. He raised an eye brow at her.

"Yes, your Majesty." He mock bowed and with the flick of his wand a huge gash appeared at the bottom of the trunk and the tree began falling in their direction. Lily screamed and ran out of harms way. James' scream was more..._manly_...and he too, at the last second, jumped out of the way.

"OY!" Lily yelled at him, "What are you! The biggest moron that walked this earth!"

"I don't know!" he yelled sarcastically, rolling his eyes, "why don't you ask my arch enemy. She goes by the name of Evans."

"I'm not your arch enemy!"

"You're not!" He asked, genuinely shocked. It was Lily's turn to roll her eyes.

"No...I just dislike you very much." He sighed in a frustrated way.

"You know—"

"Now hover that tree a little to the right, its in my way."

"Bloody MERLIN, sometimes I think you enjoy bossing me around like a grouchy house wife!" He saw Lily look away to hide her blush.

"Please don't make references to me and being your wife." He came closer to her.

"What does it matter?" he said, his voice lowering. "Do you like it or something?"

"No." she answered, a bit to quickly to be truly believed. James took a deep breath.

"Will you marry me Lily?" She stopped and blinked at him.

"W-What? Why?" she sputtered. James' heart soared; she hadn't yelled or cursed him, she just asked _why_.

"Because I've been in love with you for the last six years! That's why! Isn't that reason enough?" He said, rather impatiently. Lily noticed, and did not like his tone.

"NO! That's not good enough! You don't know barely anything about me that you haven't learned from my best friends and I, for sure, don't know anything about you!"

"My favorite color is blue, I love Italian food, I love to cook, and, if I could, I'd stare at your hair for the rest of my life because I think it's the most beautiful thing god ever created and allowed me to see. Is that enough? Or perhaps we can go on a date and you could learn more...just a date, to find out stuff about me, not like anything personal, because you wouldn't go out on a real date with me even if your life _depended _on it—" he said quickly.

"I would too!" She protested stubbornly.

"Then prove it!" and he angrily split another tree and let it fall to the ground with a deafening crash. He was seething with anger.

"Why do you make me like this!" he yelled angrily, his face contorted in so much rage that Lily actually cowered, and not because of his height. But then his face softened and he gave her a defeated look. He waved his wand in a wide arch in front of his body and the tree he had just cut down flew next to the others. There was now six and Hagrid yelled at them that they could just hover them back up to the castle and then be done. James hovered one and ran ahead; Lily walked in his snowy footprints, trailing a tree behind her as she did so. She had made James angry, _really _angry...and she felt horribly drained from it. James had let off his tree at the great oak door then dashed off, his long legs striding magnificently as he ran away and toward the Quidditch Pitch. He was probably going to go fly and let off some steam. Well...Lily thought...I guess I deserve that...I might as well get to work on moving those trees...

Lily had only moved two more, leaving two left, when James came flying out of nowhere, riding on a broom and carrying another with his free hand.

"Get on." He demanded.

"I beg your par–"

"I said GET ON!" and Lily immediately swung her lags over the broom and flew up a few feet.

"We have to finish down there!" She protested, glaring at him. He glared abck with as much hostility that she had given him.

"Hagrid can finish that. Follow me." And Lily really had no other choice but to follow.

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This IS NOT a one shot...It was originally going to be but...I changed my mind. So, yes, I hope you liked it! Its kinda...angsty I guess...oh well! Review please!

Denierure


	2. An Explanation

1Tree Hunting–2

"Where are we even going?" Lily asked irritably. "You really are testing my patience." she muttered, realizing a second later that it was the wrong thing to say.

"You know what?" he snapped, glaring at her through the corner of his eye, "For once, you are going to do what I say, instead if vice-versa, as it has been for the last six years!"

"You can't tell me what to do!" He looked ready to reply that he _did _have the power to tell her what she could and couldn't do. Then he stopped and looked away.

"You're right...but just this once can you just follow me?" she regarded him with a skeptical eye.

"It depends where you're taking me."

"That..." and his whole demeanor changed as he flashed her a charming smile, "is a surprise." and Lily couldn't help but smile.

Lily had never realized how thrilling and exhilarating flying could be. She couldn't remember the last time she had even been on a broom. She wasn't at all afraid of heights but, nonetheless, requested that they fly a little closer to the ground. James smirked and nodded, dipping the front tip of his broom so that he slowly and gradually gravitated back toward earth. "Girls..." he muttered under his breath, though Lily was not deceived as she saw the smile that lifted his lips. "Sorry I snapped at you back there, it's just–wait, we're coming up on it." and without even giving Lily time to blink, he shot off like a bullet towards the ground.

"James!" Lily screamed, horror drifting like a cloud over her bright, lively eyes. But he pulled up out of his dive just in time to yell, "Hurry up!" and Lily frowned at him before following him into a small grove, full a dark pine tree's, luscious emerald grasses, and littered with boulders that were only about two or three feet high, tall enough that you could be well off the ground but that you could still reach. A small pond laid off to the side, right before a huge cluster of trees that Lily probably never couldn't have gotten through, even if she tried her hardest _and _with magic. Lily could see that no snow covered the ground except through the hole that they had just flown in into a small pile. Light filtered in through the overhanging everglades and cast the whole space in an unearthly golden glow.

"Wow..." Lily sighed. "This is...amazing."

"Yeah." said James, looking proud, "I found it in my second year, when that big slytherin chaser Grandon was chasing me after we beat them in a game. I ended up hitting a tree and getting knocked out. Apparently, that hole up there, was made by my falling body. Magnificently, no other branches have grown over that spot. Anyway, when I woke up, I realized I must have fallen in here." He held up his hands to signify the grove. "It does have a certain...charm to it."

"As do you." Lily said, then clamped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with fear. James' mouth couldn't have been wider.

"Pardon? Did Lily just say that? Are you really Lily Evans? Because just there, you, you, you didn't sound like her at all." Lily blushed and looked at the ground.

"Shut up." then she barely raised her head to meet his eyes. "So...you brought me here to tell you a bit about yourself."

"Oh, yes, I suppose I did. I guess we could sit over here." so they moved to the side a bit and sat down on a patch of particularly soft grass.

"This place is almost unethical." Lily commented, saying it as a compliment.

"Thanks." He said, genuinely, giving her a small smile. He pulled his knees up and rested his elbows on them, after running it habitually through his dark messy tresses. He turned to her and, with an odd calculating look on his face, he took a breath and quickly leaned in towards her.

"Potter, what are you doing!" Lily exclaimed, jumping backwards. He immediately pulled away, blushing furiously a deep scarlet.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to, you just looked at me that way and I don't know what came over myself, and–" he rambled.

"It's ok, Potter. Why don't we just..._start_." she said, for lack of a better word.

"Well...um...ok. I guess I'll start with before I came to Hogwarts. All my life I'd been pressured by my grandfather, after my real parents died, to be the best, most powerful wizard. Needless to say, My grandfather had been in Slytherin. He wasn't my real grandfather, My grandmother had married him after my real grandpa died. But he was only after her money." He paused and let out a shaky breath, then continued, "Then a month after their wedding, he killed her in her sleep, by stabbing her through the heart. My parents...died at the hand of the death eaters. They were the strongest and most intelligent auror's the world had ever seen, and I want to be just like them; once I graduate, I'm sending my papers into the ministry and I'm going to be an auror." He had a fierce, determined look on his face, "I'm doing it to honor their memory and to rid the world of the evils of Voldemort. Anyway, when they died I was put into the guardianship of my grandfather, then, my supposed only remaining relative. He wanted to make me like him, but it was too late. By then I was eight years old. I knew things, things I probably shouldn't have known at my age, but they gave me the strength to fight back, especially to my grandfather. The first few weeks when I defied him or behaved badly or against his wishes, he'd beat me. But after that, I began practicing and I was able to fight back. I actually got my first wand when I was eight. It had been my fathers. One night, when my grandpa had been beating me, I saw it in my parents old trunk, just laying there, so I grabbed it and yelled expelliarmus, like I'd heard him do to our butler once. It knocked him against the opposite wall, which cracked, and appeared to be a hole where my grandpa had put some sort of secret door. Inside were pictures, of people that looked like me, and one looked pretty recently taken. It was a picture of my aunt and uncle, who I didn't even know had existed at the time, and apparently they had gone into hiding when my grandfather had tried to kill them once. But my grandfather had found where they were staying and had written it down and put it in the secret hole. But luckily he hadn't gone to kill them yet so I was able to escape with some clothes, a picture of my parents, and of course my fathers wand. It took me only a day ro two cause I took the night bus. I showed up on their doorstep, and my aunt yelled out "Harold!" which is my dads name. My uncle pulled her away and said, "That's not Herald, Elisabeth. It's little Jamie." She was so astonished, because she hadn't seen me since I was a baby. My uncle's a very sensible person, so he knew right away because I look so much like my father but that since my dad was dead that it had to be me. I love John, my uncle. I was small when my real parents died, so that meant that I held onto these two people closer then I had to anyone before that. And how I hope you and me can be." Lily blushed at his comment, but nonetheless smiled. "So, after they took me in, my aunt fussed over how dirty I was (because I hadn't had a bath in two days). It was like I had my mother again. My aunt Elisabeth was the spitting image of my dad, except she had longer hair, and more...um...ahem...feminin parts." Lily snorted, but James continued, "But she had the same hazel eyes, dark black hair, and the same way she went about things...it was if I had my mum back. She treated me like her own son, then Sirius when he came to live with us in fifth year. Oh, Aunt Lizzy adores Sirius and spoils him almost to the point of me kicking him out because he gets all the attention," James allowed himself a small laugh, then frowned darkly. Lily had an idea about what he was thinking about.

"What about your grandfather?" she asked quietly.

"He's dead. That hit he took when I threw him into the wall killed him because I had done it with so much power of hatred. That was when I sealed my fate. My grandfather was the best friend of Tom Marvolo Riddle. His best friend." Lily gasped, then looked grimly on as James trudged on with his appalling story, "When Voldemort found out...oh, death eaters swarmed our house like locus. We escaped through the floo network to the leaky caldron. I apologized profusely to my aunt because she had to leave most things behind. We had only had a ten minute warning from a member of the Order of the Phoenix. But she just told me, "As long as your safe, Jamie. I'll love you more then any material thing in this world." I felt like I would cry then, so I just hugged her. I was only eight...everything dear to her had been destroyed, an Order member informed us the next day after she had gone to investigate. So we took all of my parents money, because that had been passed down to em, not my grandfather, who had been my guardian. He was not happy about that. So we took that money and bought a mansion. My aunt and uncle wanted to give me the best...but I would have been happy if we had lived in a shack. When you and I get married, I'll have to show you." Lily looked sharply at him, but he was looking off at nothing. He had stated that last sentence as if it was nothing, but Lily knew deep down he had _really_ meant it...,"So...aunty Lizzy and uncle John bought me all my school supplies and I was on my way to the train station. I boarded the Hogwarts express and who's compartment should I stumble into?"

"Mine...I don't suppose I acted very civil towards you then."

"Oh, bugger it all Lily, I deserved that slap. I was trying to be suave and ended up being a prat. I guess being spoiled from aunt Lizzy inflated my head a bit."

"A bit?"

"Ok, _a lot_. But you were the first person, besides those filthy slytherins who stood up to my bugger-ness. I was impressed and at first tried to respect you. But you're so amazingly beautiful that I couldn't call myself a Potter if I didn't even _try _to woo you. But then you slapped me again. I was in your bad books and I have been for the last six years. But now..." and he turned to look at her, with hope shining in his eyes. Lily unconsciously realized how close his face was to hers. "Now...I've explained. I love every thing about you. I love every nervous habit of yours, especially when you blow your bangs out of your face because then I can dream that one day _I'll _get to do that. I love it when you smile, when you laugh, and those times where you secretly cover a giggle at my pranks by covering your mouth and faking a cough. And I don't know why you do it, because I notice it _every time _and you always do the _same thing_." He smiled and Lily let out a disbelieving sigh/laugh. Then his face turned serious again and he whispered, "Can I kiss you..." his eyes were almost closed. Before Lily could reply he leaned down and placed his mouth over hers. He placed his hand firmly behind her neck and lifted her up closer. They kissed for a long time, then laid down side-by-side and James briefly smiled before eagerly thrusting his mouth onto hers.

"I've wanted to kiss you since that train ride in first year."

"I hate to say this, but so have I." And she allowed him to kiss her again.

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There's going to be an epilogue. It'll be kinda short because I didn't want to make this story too long...I just wanted to try something new where Lily wasn't just nice to him or was mean to him then just out of the blue realized she loved him. I wanted a bit of explaining...just like Lily.

Please review! I really like how this story has turned out so far. You guys'll love the epilogue.

Denierure


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